Reversing lost soil fertility

Should Malawi scale up its use of inorganic fertilisers or it should pull up its efforts on conservation agriculture?

Experts warn that at 1.4 percent, the organic matter in the country’s soils is too little for farming.

“It means if a drought exceeds three weeks, even with fertiliser, the root [of crops] can’t access soil nutrients,” says Pearson Nalivata, a soil expert and senior lecture at Lilongwe University of Science and Technology (Luanar).

For a country whose economy is largely driven by agriculture, this is bad news.

In his article Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Soil Conservation: Evidence from Malawi, researcher Stefania Lovo says if the soil’s organic matter remains unchanged for the better, the production of Malawi’s main staple, maize, will steadily decrease, with years, by eight percent.

The need for reversing the trend, then, is not debatable. But how can Malawi best go about it?

The immediate answer lies in the application of inorganic fertilisers. And no case explains this better than the current Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp).

Since its introduction in 2006, Fisp has helped increase maize production, both at household and national levels.

“Without fertiliser, I am nothing. I need more every year because without it, I have little harvest,” says Esther Mazibuko, a local maize farmer from Balaka.

However, experts argue that the increased use of chemical fertilisers is not sustainable both in terms of costs and safeguarding the environment.

Economic experts have gone further to advise government to find an exit strategy for Fisp because it is draining the country’s thin coffers.

“Selling a bag of fertiliser at K500 when its market value is K15 000 (about $37.50) is a clear case of poor economics. The more we continue doing this, the more we will still move in circles,” says James Chirwa, a Master of Economics student at Chancellor College.

Beyond the cost of fertiliser, soil experts argue further that excessive use of inorganic fertiliser results in the leakage of nitrogen and phosphates in the soil or water.

In an article What are the Impacts of artificial fertilisers on Soils Nigeria’s agricultural scientist Wilfred Murray writes that accumulation of inorganic fertiliser in the soil, in the long run, collects in the groundwater which eventually finds its way to rivers and lakes.

“This leads to eutrophication—a situation where living beings can no longer live in water bodies. And when humans consume such water, they may develop health problems including stomach ulcers and blue baby syndrome,” he writes.

That effective inorganic fertilisers are not in tandem with sustainable development has been captured in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS II). This is why there have been increased efforts both by government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to adopt conservation agriculture (CA) as a key factor in reversing the lost fertility of the soil in the country.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), CA is a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while conserving the environment.

“It is based on enhancing natural biological processes above and below the ground. Interventions such as mechanical soil tillage are reduced to an absolute minimum, and the use of external inputs such as agrochemicals and nutrients of mineral or organic origin are applied at an optimum level and in a way and quantity that does not interfere with, or disrupt, the biological processes,” reads a statement on its website.

Its use in Malawi, however, does not have a long history. The concept emerged in the early 1990s. Since then, it has mostly been an enclave of NGOs, such as Total Land Care.

“As a country, this is a smarter way of ensuring that land use in the country is sustainable,” says William Chadza, executive director of Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (Cepa).

“CA requires a major change in mindset of farmers. Farmers need to be more careful about timing of agricultural operations under conservation agriculture.

“Special attention has to be paid to weed control, either through hand weeding or by judicious use of herbicides. Once the environment has been stabilised however, farm production tends to be more stable than under conventional agricultural methods. So far, there have been no pest problems that cannot be overcome in CA,” he says.

Director of land resource and conservation in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security John Mussa noted that the department needs more funding.

“Currently, the department gets K15 million annually, which means less than K1.5 million (about $3 750) a month to cater for the whole country. That is not enough,” he says.

Beyond that, Chadza, notes that the challenge Malawi faces with conservation agriculture is that it is not coordinated by legislation; as a result, a number of players are implementing it as they see fit.

“We need to have clear guidelines which every player implementing it should adhere to. Without which, the efforts won’t make a lasting impact,” he says.

A week ago, Cepa organised a consultative meeting in Zomba to review CA policies so that the concept can be considered in the National Agricultural Policy currently on the consultative stage.